From start of cloning to harvest 13 week scrog

[Sluicebox]

In post #2 you state,"I pinched some branch tips a couple weeks ago." Just want to make sure I understand you. I take it you pinched off or removed the top of the growing shoot so that 2 new shoots formed? In the pic relating to that post just above the opening of the bottle it looks like you smashed the stem with something and it healed. Or you cut away a leaf or small branch there and it healed. I didn't think you would get enough growth over two weeks from a cut growing shoot to take the size of air clones your talking about.

Just trying to be on the same page. I do that to get clones old style rock wool cubes etc but they aren't more than 3-4 inches inside of two weeks if that. I don't mean to be dense here just don't understand what your saying.

Lastly, This would require a pretty large established Mother plant wouldn't it? I was told that if you cut back a Mom by more than 2/3 she would morph. I don't know if that's true or not, just never did it. On my old Mom It would have been easy most times to take air cuts like this over 1' in length. Have you stated what your success rate is with this air layer method? Say you need 6 would you do 8 or 9 to cover loss?

Pretty amazing results you've shown us so far, quite impressive. Have a particular apple tree that puts out 1 pie apples huge I'd like to try this on next Spring. In the case of MMJ this would be great for low plant counts and way less veg, no stress.

Staying tuned, thanks for this

 

[Ichabod Crane]

Roots in 4 days is insane!

I know for real. I really like the Dip n Grow. And this is just the side of the stem. Not even where I cut it.

 

[Ichabod Crane]

In post #2 you state,"I pinched some branch tips a couple weeks ago." Just want to make sure I understand you. I take it you pinched off or removed the top of the growing shoot so that 2 new shoots formed? In the pic relating to that post just above the opening of the bottle it looks like you smashed the stem with something and it healed. Or you cut away a leaf or small branch there and it healed. I didn't think you would get enough growth over two weeks from a cut growing shoot to take the size of air clones your talking about.

Just trying to be on the same page. I do that to get clones old style rock wool cubes etc but they aren't more than 3-4 inches inside of two weeks if that. I don't mean to be dense here just don't understand what your saying.

Thanks again.

I pinched the stem. I did not break it off. It fell over limp for a few days. Then it started to grow again. When it did I pinched it again.

By doing this it messes up the hormones from the growth tip that suppress the lower branches from growing. This gives me longer lower branches that will make it easier to fill my screen when the clone is cut loose.

The knot you see in the clone pictures is where I pinched it.

 

[Sluicebox]

K I get it thanks.

 

[Ichabod Crane]

So bad news today. I was in my veg which looks like this.



And I broke one of the Death Star clones off. You can see it here in this picture.



It is in the middle where the bottle top is.

Now to be honest I screwed up this air layer. When I took it off the mother plant I could see that it broke at the part I removed the bark. Well if you look at the picture Above you can see the brake is at the top of the upper bottle. So the stripped area was not even in the coco. Duh thats a Homer Simpson mistake.

When I cut it off and looked at it I could see the top was still living so I think the branch would have just scared over. And that is what the brake appeared to be doing. Here you can see that the top was still healthy. Which proves that nutrients still get to the tip with the bark removed.



This would have been awesome in my scrog. Oh well.

I will post again when some thing else happens. It is like watching grass grow around here. lol

 

[Ichabod Crane]

Tonight when I was watering what did I see but the first root at the edge of the bottle. So 8 days in the first is a Bruce Banner #3. Here is the picture of the little tiny baby root.



I checked all the plants and found two more with roots at the top of the coco like the first Blue Dream showed. One was another Blue Dream and the other was a Death Star.

The Death Star one was coming from splits in the bark. When they split I make sure to really lay the Dip n Gro on it so it gets below the bark. So here is a picture of the Death Star clone.



Sorry about it being side ways. I had a real hard time getting the picture to show threw the bottle because of reflections from the lights. But if you look you can see some really healthy roots coming from several splits in the bark. There is also a piece of leaf in there that goes up and down in the picture.

Should not be long now before the roots really come out.

 

[Ichabod Crane]

It is almost nine days since I started this thread.

So here is what we have for roots showing at the bottle sides.

First is the Bruce Banner #3 that showed roots last night. The root that was showing has about doubled what was showing.



In addition another Bruce Banner #3 has started showing roots. It has several roots showing. Again it is just short of 9 days.



The third clone to show roots at the side of the bottle is a Death Star.



So three of the eleven clones have roots at the bottle edge. One clone has been broken off. And two show roots at the stem. So five are showing roots of the ten left.

 

[Harry Lime]

Nice work, Ichabod, your growing, your reporting and your pics.

Thanks for showing.

 

[Ichabod Crane]

Nice work, Ichabod, your growing, your reporting and your pics.

Thanks for showing.

Thanks Harry. After someone reads a thread they should be able to replicate it is my feeling. So good reporting and a accurate log is important for that. I owe so much to IC because everything I do was learned here. I just put it together in a different way and give it back for others.

And the pictures haha. They are the best I can do on my tablet.

 

[HatchBrew]

Got my interest. Thanks for sharing Ichabod. Did you and toad have a wild ride this halloween?

 

[Ichabod Crane]

Got my interest. Thanks for sharing Ichabod. Did you and toad have a wild ride this halloween?

No, Rat, Mole and I did. We left toad home.

 

[Ichabod Crane]

Update time.

I watered the air layers today. They were looking a little dry. I like to have a little condensate on the bottle edges and there was none.

I should mention that I drilled a hole in the top bottle to do this. I didnt show a picture so here you go.



Now to get water in I just use a turkey baster. Yes I bought it for the grow. Well truthfully it was the wives but not now. She has a nice new one. Thats because this one has algae growing in it. lol see.



Some of the cuttings I took were ready to transplant so I did. Here are pictures of the Bruce Banner #3 and followed by the Death Star clones.





So I thought that the second from the left Bruce Banner #3 was ready to root and so were the two out side Death Stars. I put the others back under the dome.

The first thing I had to do was get stuff ready for the transplant. I use 9 ounce cups for my first container. In these I melt four holes with a soldiering iron. It cost $5 at Menards. Here is the iron and the cup ready to use.

 

[Ichabod Crane]

Now I need to get the coco coir ready to plant in. To do this I mixed up 2 gallons of nutrient solution the same as for the air layers. I put this in a five gallon bucket.

Next I grabbed a fine meshed paint strainer. Notice it is five gallons. I picked it up also at Menards. Nice that they are a quarter mile away huh? So here is how the strainers look and what package you are looking for.



Once you have the strainer put it into the bucket of nutrient solution. It has a elastic band that goes around the outside of the five gallon bucket. Then Dump in how ever much coco you think you might need. Look below to see what I mean in this step.



After dumping enough coco coir into the strainer pull the elastic off the out side of the five gallon bucket and start dunking the bag up and down in your nutrient solution. This will precharge it with nutrients and flush out salts. After dunking several time squeeze out most of the water. Enough that only a little will come out if you squeeze it tight in your hand. Here I am dunking the coco.



I know crappy picture but I only have two hands. Sorry no nuclear power plant near by.

So now I mark my cup with a sharpie marker. Again I write the strain and date the clone was started. I do it just above the coco level when the clone is transplanted. This is a example for those who are curious.



Lastly I place them in a tray under the same lights my dome is under. The tray I believe is called an azalea tray. I picked it up in the spring at you guessed it Menards. They have them when they sell plants for spring gardening. For those who have never seen one here you go.



Now I just let them set for a few days before I water. Since the coco the clones went into is moist and full of nutrients I should have to do nothing. I will watch them for the first day to make sure they dont wilt. If they do I will place them under the dome for a few more days.

 

[Ichabod Crane]

One additional up date on the clones is that 6 of the 8 Bruce Banner #3 cuttings have roots out of the cubes. All 4 of the Death Star cuttings have roots, and one Blue Dream. Of course the Blue Dream is just barely out. But hey they are a day behind the others.

Of the air layers All three Bruce Banner #3 have roots on the outside of the bottles. 1 Death Star and 1 Blue Dream do as well.

 

[Ichabod Crane]

Sorry was going to post yesterday but was side tracked.

I went to the coco sub forum and reordered the ratings. Then started reading them. Kind of like me and Ytube. Oh like shiny, wait is that bouncing ball.

For the new people what I am talking about is the rating button at the top of the sub forums. Click on that and the highest rated threads come to the top. You can do the same with the replies and post. It is a good way to find the best threads as rated by the views like me and you.

If you find a thread that you like or learned a lot from you should rate it. That way others can be made aware of it as well. I often see people tell the new posters to read before asking questions but they have so much to read they get lost. This is how you help them find the correct stuff to read.

To rate a thread just open it up and at the top of the posts it says "rate thread". Just click what you feel it should be rated.

While there at the top look to the left of the rate button is another important button. It is the "thread tools" button. Here is where you can subscribe to a thread. Click the thread tools button ans a drop down menu shows up. On this menu click on the "subscribe to this thread button". In a couple seconds a new page will show up. It will have another button that says "add subscription". Click that and you will now be subscribed.

To access your subscribed threads go to the top of the page. Off to the right you will see "my ic". Click that and your subscribed threads will show up. The threads with new posts will be black. You can click it to go to the thread directly.

Anyway long story short I clicked the rating button and way trolling threw old threads. haha.

 

[Ichabod Crane]

Enough of that right? Where are the pictures?



Here are some from today. The first three are from just short of 12 days. The first is of the first Bruce Banner #3 to root.



The next is of the second Bruce Banner #3 to root.



Next is a Death Star.



The last picture is one of the Blue Dreams. It is a day behind the others so it is just under day 11.



These are the best rooted of the three strains.

Later today I will try to post up how I will be doing the nutrient feeding for these plants. So a feed schedule.

 

[Ichabod Crane]

How neglectful of me. I did not mention how to rate a post.

There are two ways to do this. The first is down on the right bottom of the post. Click this and it adds to the number of times the post has been rated good.

The second is the little scale symbol on the bottom left of the post. Click this and a drop down menu will show up. Here it say "I approve" or "I disapprove". Click on the one you want. Then if you want you can type a message in the box below these. I cant because my tablet wont let me but the desk top will. If I get a keyboard haha. So when you are done click on the "add to reputation". And you just rated a post.

If someone rates you it will show up on your "my ic" page. It will also show below your post count number on the upper left of your posts.

By rating post you can let people know you agree with what they posted. It will also let the new people see what others think about what you posted. You cant always tell bad post from good unless you look at the number of times it had been rated. Also look at the posters reputation to tell how people rate their over all posts.

Now if you like the way a poster posts you can find more post by that poster. To do this click on their name to the upper right of one of their posts. A drop down menu will show up. On this menu you will see a button that says "find more post by (name of poster)". Click that and you will see their posts.

 

[Ichabod Crane]

Today I up potted some more clones.

The first were the remaining Death Star clones. So I now have 4 of 4 Death Star clones from cuttings in cups. This picture shows the roots on them when planted into the cups.




The next picture is Bruce Banner #3 clones at the time of planting today. All of the 8 Bruce Banner #3 clones from cuttings are now rooted.



The last picture shows three of the Blue Dream clones. They have roots showing. The fourth Blue Dream clone from cuttings has no roots showing yet. Remember these are a day behind the above clones.



So of the 16 clones from cuttings I have roots on 15.

 

[Ichabod Crane]

I forgot to mention earlier about the clones I planted two days ago. Two have roots to the edge of their cups. Not many but a few. They are small, about a quarter inch. I also watered them with about a hundred mls of nutrient solution.

I had no issues with wilting after transplanting them.

 

[Ichabod Crane]

I didnt get to laying out my nutrient schedule yesterday so here goes.

I use:

Jacks 5-12-26
Calcium Nitrate
Potassium Silicate
Drip Clean
Phosphoric acid
Molasses
MKP (Mono Potassium Phosphate)

My Jacks and Calcium Nitrate are made into a stock solution. To make the solution I need a gallon jug. I like the Arizona Iced Tea jugs. They are heavy duty unlike a milk jug. I have had milk jugs develop pin holes when shaken so be aware if using them this may happen. The amounts used are listed below.

Jacks 5-12-26 at 880 grams per gallon
Calcium Nitrate 644 grams per gallon

These should be mixed a few days in advance to ensure they are completely dissolved. They should also be mixed with RO water.

Now for every week except flush I use this mix.

10 ml Jacks stock solution
10 ml Calcium Nitrate stock solution
1 ml Potassium Silicate
1 ml Drip Clean
Phosphoric acid to get PH to 5.8

These are all per gallon of RO water.

After stretch I add the following

About 1 tablespoon molasses 1 to 2 times per week till a half week before flush. Since I am flowering for ten weeks and stretch is about four weeks from week 4 till 8.5 weeks of flower.

I also add 1 teaspoon of the MKP at the same rate.

The Phosphoric acid I use is from Tractor Supply. It is really strong should you choose to use it. I use it because it is food safe and real cheap. Cost about $14 per gallon. It is used in the dairy industry to clean the milking equipment. Here is a picture of what it looks like.



Believe me when I say it is strong. It will last a long long time. Use drops at a time till you know about how much to use. If you have a hard time finding it at the store tell them you are looking for milk stone remover.

If you follow the above mixes the EC should come out at about 1.2.